Wednesday, September 15, 2010

It is now 2:17 in the afternoon. My afternoon classes were cut short for unexplained reasons. So here I am. Alone. In the house. With nothing to do. Again. What's that you say? I should get out of the house? Truly, I would love to. But! It's raining. Again. And it looks like it will rain for a long time. The rain I don't mind, it is the wind that is bothering me. So to fill up time in what would otherwise be a REALLY quiet afternoon (Except for the pounding of the rain), I'm going to write. With my glass of hot chocolate. :)

On Sunday, I had dinner with my host counselor, Per, and his family. It was good. The whole family was nice. Per's oldest daughter, Anna, moved out, so I didn't meet her. But his second, Lotta, was on a exchange two years ago! To Australia! A rotex! Huray! His youngest daughter, Sofie is my age. I liked her instantly. Always smiling, always has something nice to say. XD

I had more fika with David.

Okej. In a few days time, there will be an election for the Federal Government, Riksdagen. There are seven major political parties. A party needs 4% of the vote to get a seat. Usually, there are no majority governments, so there are coalitions. Among the parties, there are two major coalitions. The Right Wing parties, and the Left Wing parties. Typically those are the coalitions. And traditionally, it was the left parties in charge. There has been a recent shift in that. The most obvious example that I can think of is The Sverige Demokrates, Swedish Democrats. This is the most extreme party. Right wing. One could almost, ALMOST, call it a fascist party. Most of its policies are alright, in fact sensible. But, the one policy that rankles with most of the people is their stance on immigrants. They don't want them to come to Sweden. For background, most of the recent immigrants are from the Middle East. Yep. Swedish Democrats do not want immigrants. This isn't a racist party, but it attracts a great deal of racists. Swedish Democrats don't have seats in the Riksdag, but with this election, they might. When my school held a mock debate, there was a person representing the Sverige Demkrates. Everyone supported the other debaters, but this poor guy got brow-beat all over the stage. That's the measure of how much a lot of people hate the Sverige Demkrates. On the lighter side of politics, there is a political party that wants to legalize downloading. XD No, The Pirate party has no seats. :( One final note about the election. The voting rate is high. 80% vote. 80%! And that is considered low here!

Last thing. I'm throwing my pride into the wind. Comment! Please! I need to know that people are reading this!

About Me

Right now, in a land far, far away, there was this Canadian girl in Sweden. I'm currently on an exchange, (Thank you, Rotary International Youth Exchange!!) and I want to tell everyone what it is like to be in a country that is familiar, yet vastly different!